Guard for sewing machines



Oct. 9, 1951 R. PELLETIER GUARD FOR sswme MACHINES Filed Aug. 2, 1949 2Sheets-Sheet 1 INVENTOR ROGER PELLET/ER ATTORNEY 1951 R. PELLETIER2,570,705

GUARD FOR SEWING MACHINES Filed Aug. 2, 1949 2 SheetsSheet 2 FIG. 6.

INVENTOR ROGER PELLET/ER ATTORNEY Patented Oct. 9, 1951 UNITED STATESPATENT OFFICE The present invention relates to improvements in sewingmachine guards adapted for the protection of the operator.

In the use of sewing machines, both of the home type and the industrialtype, the rapidly oscillating machine needle ofiers a considerabledanger to the operator. Thus in close or fast work, and. particularly insuch work as shirring, the operator tends to place his or her fingers inclose proximity to the point at which the material is being sewn,thereby exposing himself to the liability of having a finger pierced bythe needle. Such needle pierced fingers are a common occurrence,especially in sewing factories.

In addition, at times the needle may strike a button or some hard objectassociated with the material, such as a zipper, and may thereby suddenlybreak, the severed piece easily flying out with great force and being afurther source of imminent injury.

For these reasons it has become customary, for the purpose of safety, touse guards enclosing the needle of the machine in use to affordprotection to the operator. The guards most commonly in use aregenerally formed of metallic wire or the like which have some inhibitingeiiect so far as needle piercing is concerned, but cannotabsolutelyprevent such accidents, since the wires are located merely inthe regions of most likely approach of the finger, but cannot and do notabsolutely prevent the finger from being positioned beneath the needle.In addition, such guards to some extent impair the efiiciency of theoperator because they interfere with vision. It is essential that theoperator have clear unobstructedvision at the point where the needleenters the material being sewn and just in advance of that point inorder to be able to accurately guide the material under the needleduring sewing. Any obstruction to the vision of the operator therebyeither places a strain upon the operator to avoid that visualobstruction, or necessarily lowers the speed of operation and theoperators efiiciency. Furthermore, such sewing machine guards have hadto be specially constructed for each different type of sewing machine inuse, thereby causing the manufacturer and the vendor to make and tostock a wide variety of different guards.

These defects and disadvantages of the prior art are substantiallyovercome by the present invention, by which is provided a greatlyimproved sewing machine guard which substantially completely enclosesthe danger zone within which the needle moves so as to preventcompletely the 2 Claims. (Cl. 112-261) positioning of the operatorsfinger beneath the' needle while at the same time providingsubstantially no obstruction to prevent visibility at the point of work.

According to a further feature of the present invention, a needle guardis provided which is universal in its application, being adapted to beused with sewing machines of widely different type and size.

These and other objects and advantages of the present invention willbecome more apparent from the following description of preferredembodiments thereof taken in conjunction with the appended drawings inwhich:

Figure 1 is a perspective view of one form of my invention shown inplace on a sewing machine;

Figure 2 is a perspective view of the same novel sewing machine guardviewed from the other side;

Figure 3 is one side view of the guard of Figures 1 and 2;

Figure 4 is a front view of said guard;

Figure 5 is the other side view of said guard;

Figure 6 shows a perspective view of a further form of guard foruniversal use;

Figure 7 is a perspective view of the guard of Figure 6 viewed from theopposite side;

Figure 8 is a side view of the same guard applied to a different type ofsewing machine;

Figure 9 is a perspective view of the guard of Figure 8; and

Figure 10 is a side view of said same guard in condition for use withstill another type of sewing machine. 1

Referring to Figure 1, there is shown in dotted lines the customaryconstruction of a sewing machine including a work table II, a needle barI2 to which is secured the machine needle I3 as by a set screw I4, and apresser foot I0 detachably secured to a presser foot bar IT as by ascrew IS. The novel sewing machine guard 2| of the present invention isshown applied to this sewing machine in Figure 1 and its configurationis shown more clearly in Figures 2, 3, 4 and 5.

This guard 2| is fabricated of a transparent moldable material such asvinyl acetate, Lucite, tenite or the like. It is shaped generally in theform of a U having a front wall 22, left side wall 23, and a right sidewall 24. The left and right side walls have registering notches 26 intheir back edges, at least one of these notches being adapted to engagethe presser foot set screw 48 and serving as a mounting for the guard.That is, the guard is secured in place merely by loosening the presserfoot set screw I8, slipping 'where convenient ,or desired.

the guard in place and then tightening the set screw [8 so that nofurther mounting or clamping means is necessary. The left side wall isprovided with a slot 21 extending from the top edge of the guarddownwardly to a point adjacent the bottom edge but leaving a web 28serving to join the sections of the guard on either side of the slot 21.The right side of the guard is provided with a similar slot 29 extendingfrom the bottom edge of the guard upwardly leaving a further web ill inthe shoulder 32 of the guard. The

shoulder 32 of the guard extends to the right of the right wall andforwardly of the front wall and then upwardly, thereby providing furthershielding even above the top of the visible portion of the needle barand around the needle bar guide 33 of the machine.

The two slots 21 and 28 permit ready threading of the needle even withthe guard in place. Customarily the needle is threaded from the leftside through to the right side, and this operation is in no way impairedor prevented by the present guard. Preferably the guard is made asnarrow as can conveniently encompass the needle bar in order tofacilitate such threading. sired, part of the left wall may be ofiset asshown at 34 to permit the slots 27 and 29 to be more closely spaced thanthe thickness of the presser foot mounting permits at the back edges ofthe guard. However, this offset may be omitted The needle set screw [4preferably extends symmetrically within the slot 29 and rides up anddown in that slot without obstruction.

Since the guard is made of transparent material, it offers practically,no obstruction to visibility. However, if even more perfect visibilityis desired, an opening 3'! may be provided. This opening 3! may beomitted where not necessary or desirable. In order to conserve materialand also to provide a more pleasing appearance, the lower back cornersof the side walls may be rounded or chamfered as shown at 38.

Figures 6 through show a modified form of guide of even simplerconstruction and adapted for a wider variety of types of sewing machine.This guard comprises a transparent portion H,; to which a mounting clip42 is rotatably secured as by riveting as shown at 43. v

The transparent portion 5! has a front wall 5!, a back wall 52 and twoside walls; 53 and 5d. The front wall 5| may have an aperture 55 at thebottom edgejthereof similar to the aperture 3'! of the guard of Figures1 to 5, although this aperture may be omitted if desired. The left wall54 as viewed from the front has a slot 5t extending from the top edgenearly to the bottom, but separated from the bottom by a web 51 inafashion similar to the slot 2'! and web 28, shown in Figure 3. The backwall may have an opening 58 at the bottom edge thereof adapted tostraddle the presser foot in certain types of machine in which the footmay otherwise obstruct or interfere with the positioning of the guard.The right wall 53 has a slot 59 extending the full length thereof. Itwill therefore be appreciated that the transparent section ll of thisguard may be formed by bending as well as by molding, where desired. Theside edges at the front of the guard are also beveled as shown at 52 toprovide clearance when used with downwardly extending presser feet suchas that shown in Figure 8.

The mounting clip 42 is formed as a bracket having a flat sidejuxtaposed to the back wall Where deill 52 of the guard and an outwardlyextending bifurcated section at right angles thereto. As will be seenfrom Figures 7-9 and 10, the mounting clip 42 may have several differentpositions. As shown in Figure 7 it is mounted with the bifurcatedsection 65 in a vertical plane being thereby adapted for use with sewingmachines having horizontally extending presser foot retaining screws asshown at l8. Figure 9 shows another position of the mounting clip withthe bifurcated portion 65 in a horizontal plane useful for machines ofthe type shown in Figure 8 where the presser foot is secured at the endof the presserfoot bar I? by a retaining nut H on a vertically extendingscrew 72. For some types of machine where it is desired that the guardbe lowered slightly, the clip may be mounted as shown in Figure 10 withthe bifurcated portion horizontal, as shown in Figure 9, but above therivet 43 instead of below.

In manufacture, the clip 42 is riveted lightly to the transparentsection 4% in such fashion that it will retain its position, but can berotated readily to another of the three positions shown in Figures 7-9or 10. It will thus be apparent that this guard presents all theadvantages of the form discussed above and additionally is universallyapplicable to different machines having different presser footmountings.

In this way a sewing machine guard is-provided which because of itstransparency, as well as its apertures, does not interfere with goodvisibility during operation, and at the same time so completely enclosesthe needleas to completely prevent placing the finger of the operatorbeneath the needle, whereby needle piercings are prevented. Similarlyany broken needles cannot fly outwardly toendanger the operator. Theguard is readily'mountable and demountable in the same manner as thepresser foot, and per mits easy threading of the machine needleduringuse. It will be appreciated that where desired, the material of whichthe guard is may can be selected sufficiently thin to .make the guardpartially flexible so that, to further facilitate threading, the partscan be manually compressed or shifted slightly and flexibly as desired.

Since many minor modifications of the present invention can be readilyconceived without departing from the essential spirit thereof, it is tobe understood that the above description is intended to be illustrativeonly and should not-be just-ably mounted on one wall of said sheet andproviding mounting means for said guard, said clip comprising a pair offlat perpendicularly disposed legs, one of said legs being pivotallymounted against one wall of said unitary sheet for pivotal movementabout a horizontal axis, the other of said legs being bifurcated bya-slot adapted to receive a presser foot retaining screw whereby saidclip in different positions thereof i adapted to be affixed to, bothvertical and horizontal presser foot retaining screws of different typesof sewing machine.

2. A guard for a sewing machine or the like formed of a unitary sheet ofmaterial having a generally tubular configuration with a front wall,side walls and a back wall, one side wall being vertically slotted fromthe top edge downwardly to a point separated from the bottom edge, theother side wall being slotted vertically from the top edge to the bottomedge and a bracket clip rotatably fixed to said back well, said clipconsisting of a flat strip having two perpendicularly disposed legs, oneof said legs being rotatably aifixed to said back wall and the ingretaining screw while in a second position with said bifurcated leg in ahorizontal plane, said clip being adapted to be ailixed to a presserfoot having a vertically extending retaining 5 screw.

ROGER PELLETIER.

other of said legs being bifurcated by a slot 10 m of t i patent;

adapted to receive a presser foot retaining screw, said clip in oneposition with said bifurcated leg in a vertical plane being adapted tobe aflixed to a presser foot having a horizontally extend- UNITED STATESPATENTS Number

